Terrorism is a hard topic to discuss – because people differ on what it is, where it comes from, and how best to prevent it. The word gets overused, politically twisted. Not every deranged, incensed, or violent behavior is terrorism, nor – by the way – is speech. So, what is terrorism?
In one sense, you could say any bad act that puts another human in a state of terror, or extreme fear, must be terrorism. Or you could say that people who commit crimes for political reasons are terrorists. Fair enough – but there is more.
These definitions are only partly true, making them inadequate. Any act of violence traceable to anything in society that goes beyond greed and cruelty, creating damage, injury, or death, is extreme – but that does not make it terrorism.
When you start to use words like “terrorism” loosely, splashing all sorts of people with them – especially political opponents, calling half a country “enemies of the people,” going after parents in school board meetings, as this Administration continues to do, you misuse words.
For starters, you water down – change in dishonest ways – real legal meanings, suggesting law enforcement should follow politics into misapplication. That, all by itself, is dangerous.
Then, if words like “terrorist” are used to smear and frighten people into silence, stop people from speaking up, resisting radical change, reigning in progressive school boards, medical boards, keeping government accountable you defy statute law and the Constitution.
Yet this is what is happening. Rather than seeing crimes as crimes, offensive statements as permitted talk, recognizing passions percolate in politics, people care about society and children, those who speak are increasingly called “terrorists.” In many cases, they are actually prosecuted.
This is utterly wrong. When government coercion is used to intimidate, place in fear, chill, worry, and silence those who speak against abuses by government locally, nationally, in person or with social media, public trust is abused.
To put a fine point on it: Free speech is not terrorism. Political speech is not terrorism. Even depraved crime based on mental health problems, resentment, or extreme anger is not terrorism. The latter are all prosecutable; the former – speech – is not a crime. Neither is terrorism.
Let me share what terrorism is. In November 1997, an oversight team flew to the Middle East, spent time in Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Greece. Briefed by HQ Fifth Fleet, on USS Nimitz, we surveyed damage at Khobar Towers, Dhahran, Saudi.
At that base, where hundreds of US airmen and thousands of allies lived, we saw in revolting color what terrorism looks like, how foreign terrorist organizations, illicitly financed, ideologically obsessed, terror-driven can deliver sobering, horrifying outcomes.
The base was part of an effort in the 1990s to patrol Iraq’s no-fly zone, keeping the lid on explosive regional pressures. It was supported by Saudi Arabia, but tensions were high.
On the night of June 25, 1996, a sewage tanker truck – with 20,000 pounds of TNT – pulled into a parking lot beside building 131, with two cars. Those in the truck ducked into the cars, left.
The truck stood 80 feet from Building 131, an eight-story, eight-wide apartment building, housing the 58th Fighter Squadron, many asleep. Seconds suddenly counted. about the truck.
A staff sergeant, Alfred Guerrero, checking with sentries rooftop, saw the truck. He knew at once. The three wasted no time, triggered a “cascade” or “waterfall” evacuation, waking top floors which flowed down, many high ranking officers, aviators, all Americans.
Seconds ticked as they shouted, ran, got people to the other side of the building. They got halfway down when the massive bomb exploded, taking off the entire side of the building, sending concrete, glass, and everything else into the interior.
Miraculously, the hardened building did not collapse, allowing most to get out. Nineteen airmen died, hundreds seriously injured. The heroic Guerrero survived.
After that event, force protection around the world – and at home – changed. International terrorism, a threat on par with state-to-state violence, was real. The event was the deadliest since terrorists hit the Marine Corps barracks, Beirut, in 1983.
Standing before the open face of 131 in Dhahran – blood on interior walls of the lower floors – you saw the well-financed, systematic, organized, ideological, ruthless international terrorism.
Walking up damaged floors of the second building, soon razed with the first, one saw the devastation and heartless nature of organized, highly surveilled, planned, and executed terror.
More than 25 years have passed. Once again, we think we have the luxury, as some did then, to reimagine terrorism, think no one will touch us weak, despite a live Taliban and global hate.
Instead, many in power think we can redefine terrorism as something other than the bulk – worldwide – of what it was then and still is – ruthless, international, overtly anti-American.
They think we have the luxury to play politics with the word, mis-define, redefine, refocus on stopping those who – they say – are “enemies of the people” because they do not agree with leftwing politics, or resist government overreach, or care about their children. Well, there is a word for that – and the word is “wrong.”
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.
